This Monday, January 17, 2022 is the official opening of the new CRA (administrative detention centre) in Lyon, next to Saint-Exupéry airport, as well as the transfer of prisoners from the old CRA into it. In order not to let the State organize its policy of confinement in silence and in support of the prisoners, we decided to make the opening of the new CRA visible and disrupt the transfer.
For months, the opening of a new CRA is done in the most total media silence, while it is one more element in the repression against people considered undocumented, and in the racist and criminal migration policy of the French State.
In 2019 the Macron government announced the construction of 3 new CRAs (in Lyon, Bordeaux and Olivet near Orléans).
These are the first new CRAs to be built in nearly 10 years, but in recent years hundreds of new places have been created, the occupancy rates of the CRAs have continued to increase (expansion, extension, renovation) and new projects are already underway.
The objective of the State is clear: to increase more and more the capacities of confinement even if it means spending millions of euros to criminalize, torture and expel people who do not have the right papers according to the French State. CRAs, CPRs, closed centres and their equivalents are one of the links in the repressive chain against undocumented migrants. They are the immediate continuation of the raids in transit areas and working-class neighbourhoods, the reverse side of the organization of non-reception, as well as the direct extension of police violence against exiles, whether in the camps in Calais or elsewhere. The prison machine completes the arsenal of policies of repression, which are becoming more sophisticated and criminal through the militarization and externalization of borders.
The current electoral context, saturated by slogans of the far right, reinforces and legitimizes even more than usual the racist and security-oriented discourse of the State. The Islamophobic outbursts, the myth of an “enemy within” and the trivialization of theories of replacement, which are broadcast incessantly on the mainstream media, offer a favourable terrain for the hardening of migration policies and encourage the government to multiply racist measures and the persecution of migrants.
Work on the new Lyon ARC began in spring 2020. It is located on the site of Lyon Saint Exupéry airport, very close to the existing ARC. It will have a capacity of 140 places in addition to the 140 places already in existence.
The ARC system is a real affair for a number of private companies and associations that make money from the construction, management and maintenance of this prison. The new CRA cost the State more than 20 million euros, which went into the pockets of the construction giant Eiffage.
Currently, in addition to the daily violence suffered by the prisoners, there is also the fear and insecurity linked to the health context (promiscuity, no barriers, no access to care). Indeed, the Lyon CRA has been a real cluster since the beginning of December. For a few weeks now, it has officially been used as a “CRA-Covid” and prisoners from all over France who have tested positive are transferred there.
Let’s inform ourselves, let’s not allow this opening to happen in silence.
DOWN WITH THE CRA!
DOWN WITH BORDERS!
SUPPORT ALL PRISONERS!
For months, the opening of a new CRA is done in the most total media silence, while it is one more element in the repression against people considered undocumented, and in the racist and criminal migration policy of the French State.